I agree that most Republicans and Tea Partiers–there’s a lot of overlap, but they’re not entirely synonymous–don’t actively want the economy to tank. But this I don’t think is right:

At the same time, an awful lot of them sure don’t seem to care very much. They’re more focused on getting Obama out of the White House, and the truth is that a little bit of economy tanking makes that goal a little easier to achieve. And so, here we are.

Some, especially the more rational if venal Republicans in Congress, appear to be taking the position that it’s more important to get rid of Obama than to keep the economy from tanking. Mitch McConnell and probably John Boehner are in that camp.

But that doesn’t describe all of the Republicans who are doing things that could tank the economy. For the tea partiers, anything done in cooperation with Barack Obama is treason and WILL result in the tanking of the economy. We’re not dealing with people who are rational political actors. Barack Obama, for many of the tea partiers (and probably 30-50 members of Congress) is a socialist communist born in Kenya and trained in terrorism at one of those madwhatsthey’recalled, a muslim who goes to a black nationalist church, and who doesn’t only want to destroy American, but IS destroying America. Any collaboration with a monster such as Obama would, in the fervid minds of the teapartiers, precipitate the complete collapse of America, and is thus a collaboration with evil.

There’s plenty of cynicism among the Republicans in Congress. But until this year, the number of members of Congress who sincerely believed Barack Obama was an illegitimate president and an existential threat to our nation’s survival included only a few ultra-radicals like Steve King and Michele Bachmann. But some time this afternoon we’ll see, once the rightwing votes against Boehner’s bill are tallied, just how many members of Congress are not just cynical, but unhinged.